What your business can learn from another roadside attraction

On the Trans-Canada Highway in New Brunswick just shy of Nova Scotia, there's a tourist attraction called Magnetic Hill. It gained fame in the 1800s as a place where your horse cart would appear to roll uphill, though today it's arguably better known as an amusement park/water slide/zoo complex that also holds rock concerts for long-in-the-tooth headliners like AC/DC. There are enough "gravity hills" in the world that Wikipedia has an entry for the phenomenon, though the one from which this particular site takes its name is pretty well an afterthought at this point.

Like so many roadside attractions, Magnetic Hill is, alas, a tad underwhelming. You pay your five bucks, get your instructions from the hill attendant (a frontrunner for Boringest Jobs in North America), and drive to the appointed marker a hundred meters or so in the distance. Put the car in neutral, crane yourself around so you can see out the rear window, let off the brake and, voila, your brain thinks you're coasting uphill. The illusion isn't terribly convincing--as my teenage son put it, "I think it's more like Momentum Hill."

So, the business angle. You always hear experts say that you should never overpromise and underdeliver, but that's the business plan of just about any roadside attraction, isn't it? Their marketing abilities deserve the utmost respect, surviving on no more than an endless tease of billboards and quarter-page ads in local tourista publications. Because they're dependent on a fool-me-once clientele, the "underdeliver" part doesn't really matter. Repeat customers, on the other hand, require reliability and trust. The lesson in here for freelancers, or for that matter any type of businessperson, really comes down to promising and delivering. Say what you're going to do, then do it, and you'll have a good chance to do it until you don't want to anymore.

Then again, you could argue that our family has derived far more than our $5 worth of laughs since being lured off the highway on that fateful summer afternoon. Unforgettable experiences come in a variety of packages, eh?

Arizona Dust

I'm taking a break from loading the trailer while a snowstorm drops the first of 30 centimeters on us. My computer will get boxed next, so this will be my last post till I hit the road in the morning.

Yes, our Canadian tour of duty is complete and it's time to head Phoenixward. Too many thoughts rattling around in my head to do any of them justice, so I'll let Blue Rodeo, a quintessentially Canadian band, handle the outro for me. Their lyric--"As I’m eating Arizona dust/And wishing I was home"--testifies to the power of returning to the places that make you happy, even if they're not the same for each of us (and occasionally 180 degrees different).

"Honey, I think I've got writer's block!"

Was doing a web search for the Algonquin Hotel in St-Andrews-by-the-Sea, located about an hour south of us in New Brunswick, Canada, when I was stopped in my tracks by the following promotion at the legendary Algonquin Hotel in New York City:

Writer's Block Rate: Receive 25% off of the best possible rate. When you book through our website, simply by showing a work in progress or a published work upon check-in.

"But, Jake," you say, "A center-city New York hotel is going to be expensive." True, but the bright side is that the $500-plus nightly rate means you'll "save" $125 or more!!! A glance at the history page reveals that it's more than an intriguing marketing pitch--truly, you might be able to pick up some positive writing mojo. (Which, for that kind of dough, you darn well better.):

From its inception, manager (and later owner) Frank Case created a vision for The Algonquin as New York’s center of literary and theatrical life. His enduring fascination with actors and writers led him to extend them credit, in the process luring such luminaries as Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. and John Barrymore.

Famed women flocked to the hotel as well, as The Algonquin was unconventional early on in accommodating single women guests. Over the years, these have included Gertrude Stein, Simone de Beauvoir, Helen Hayes, Erica Jones, and Maya Angelou.

Three Nobel laureates visited on a regular basis, including Sinclair Lewis (who offered to buy the hotel), Derek Walcott, and most memorably William Faulkner, who drafted his Nobel Prize acceptance speech at The Algonquin in 1950.

The promotion, if you've got $375 plus tax burning a hole in your pocket, lasts through the end of 2009.

Playing "Easy to Get"

A not-insignificant portion of my freelance time is spent tracking people down. For corporate copywriting clients, that time is generally on their clock--no harm done, part of the frictional cost of doing business. When it's a resource I need for a magazine feature, however, any runaround comes at my expense--deadline and pay rate.

A few weeks back, I contacted a well-known political figure for an article in Speaker magazine, which named her as one of the nation's 25 top professional orators. She replied by email that she was too busy, and her assistant was equally unhelpful and unresponsive. I frankensteined together a profile from existing public documents; serviceable enough, but unsatisfying.

Contrast that with yesterday. I'd been assigned to write a profile about someone whose book currently resides on the New York Times bestseller list. Mentally, I prepared myself to endure a multi-week game of phone tag that would push me up against my deadline, and to perhaps never reach him at all.

Low and behold, I received a positive email response back in less than 2 hours. Within 3 hours, his assistant had sent me a list of 10 possible interview times to choose from. Woohoo! There are all manner of conclusions you can draw from this type of response, not the least of which being the difference in responsiveness one can expect from a businessperson compared to a politician. Most of all, it reminded me how powerful a personal statement it is to be easy to reach, fast to reply and eager to help.

I can't reveal his name or the name of his book at the moment, but will do so at a date closer to publication. I'm about halfway through the book, and very much looking forward to interviewing him later this week.

***

I'm still wrapping my head around what a surprising and fantastic trip we had through Atlantic Canada, and will write further in the coming weeks. But what I will say is that St. John's, Newfoundland, was the most genuine, most welcoming place I've ever been. (I was going to say "bar none," but they're kinda famous for the several dozen watering holes on George Street.)

A Tale of Two Borders

We're four months into our year-long Canadian adventure. Suffice it to say, the cultural differences have been more significant than we'd anticipated, and more than you'd ever realize in a two-week holiday jaunt. Not in a bad way, mind you, but surely in ways that make you think.

At the risk of oversimplifying, our goal while we're here is to follow the Switzerland principle: Take no sides. We've encouraged our kids to err toward silence while the States' way of doing things takes a daily bashing from classmates and teachers. My wife and I have strived to be models of neutrality in the face of same. (It's actually quite humorous when someone goes on an anti-U.S. rant thinking that we're Canadian.)

But as we were chatting over breakfast this morning, we hit upon kind of an interesting nonparallel (perpendicular?) situation from our experience in the States. Our home is in Phoenix, a few hours from the Mexican border and the Sea of Cortez. We have friends, many of whom have lived in Arizona for years, who hate Mexico. They do not go there. They do not care that the beaches are beautiful, the beer is cheap, the food is great, and the people are friendly. Like Dr. Seuss's Sam I Am, they won't go if invited, and they'd never go on their own initiative.

In contrast, you don't have to go very far around here before finding scads of people professing to dislike the U.S. who nonetheless cross the border on a regular basis for cheaper and more-varied shopping, half-price booze and vacations. (As above, I find it humorous rather than injurious to my patriotism.)

I make no judgment presenting this here, not on Canadians for going to the U.S., nor Phoenicians for refusing to go to Mexico. I know full well that we are just one data point in one province, and I am aware that you can't draw an equals sign between traveling to the U.S. and Mexico.

It is simply, as Rod Serling used to say, "for your consideration..."

$59.50 screwdrivers and other bad ideas

We've all heard about the feds paying $300 for a hammer. They're a bloated bureaucracy; that's what they excel at. But even a non-bloated, non-bureaucracy runs the risks of such inefficiencies. All it takes is for otherwise-smart people to fail to think things through.

About a year ago, my neighbor Anne-Marie borrowed a screwdriver from me--a standard-issue Stanley phillips head. Then she accidentally left it in a rental car. She said she'd replace it, and I told her not to worry about it. Then she moved out of town.

Fast forward to last Friday. I'm running my freelancing business in Canada, but maintain a U.S. business address in order to make life convenient for my clients. We've also forwarded all of our home mail to the business address, and every two weeks, the mailing service packs up and forwards everything to us in a letter-size Priority Mail envelope.

So this week's shipment comes in a huge box, and inside that is a smaller box, and inside that smaller box are two bubble-wrapped (!) screwdrivers from Anne-Marie. (Addressed to "Matt," which just added to the unintentional comedy.) For fun, let's do the math:

• 2 new screwdrivers=$20
  
• Postage to send screwdrivers from Anne-Marie to Phoenix=$4.50
  
• Excess postage to send big box instead of letter size to Canada=$20
  
• Original lost screwdriver=$5
  
• Screwdriver that I'd already bought 11 months ago to replace the lost one=$10
  
• Jake's lost braincells=Priceless
  

Because my head already hurts, I'm not going to calculate the time cost of all of the participants, or worry about why someone would bubble-wrap a screwdriver. And, in her defense, she had no idea of the Rube Goldbergian route her kindness would take. But let's just say an alternative plan would have been, for example, mailing me a $10 bill or $10 check. Or simply forgetting about it altogether.

"No one goes there no more. It's too crowded."

At the Saturday farmer's market here in Fredericton, there's a small prefab hut that houses two competing samosa vendors side by side. (Samosas are a stuffed triangular meat or vegetable pastry in the same culinary family as an empanada, pasty or my friend Lara's Craven Haven Jamaican patties.) A buck each or a dozen for $10.

But from a sales perspective, it's a curious dynamic: Every weekend, Yummy Samosas (shown in the photo) is empty, while Samosa Delight often has 50 or more people standing in line. Samosa Delight has a wider variety of filling options, which undoubtedly has something to do with the difference. On the other hand, after you've waited 20 minutes in line, the service is Soup Nazi-esque. When a window opens, you damn well better already be in motion towards it, and you'll get a dirty look if you give them a $20 and they're low on change.

So, this morning, I tried an experiment and gave Yummy Samosa a try. Instantly, three or four customers lined up with me. Sure enough, each vendor's spicy chicken tastes like...um, spicy chicken. Makes you wonder if Mr. Yummy Samosa should pay people to fake standing in line. That's what I'd do, along with giving out free samples.

The title of the post is widely attributed to Yogi Berra, commenting on an overly popular New York bar, but who knows.

Animal spirits

Québec City was our destination of choice for the Victoria Day long weekend--absolutely magnificent place, like Paris with the haughty edge dulled by Canadian politesse.

On Sunday, my wife and I headed out sans-enfants to Restaurant Aux Anciens Canadiens for an afternoon appetizer and cocktail. They're not kidding about the "anciens" part (the building dates to 1675) and their repertoire includes wild game that we'd never seen on a menu before, such as wapati.

We ordered a pair of La Fin Du Monde ("end of the world") beers, and meanwhile tried to crack the French code of the menu. Foie gras seemed like a suitably French thing to order, and caribou sounded like fun. "Would you like the caribou before the foie gras?" the waitress asked in broken-but-passable English, and we said "Oui," or more likely "Por favor," which is a hard habit for me to break.

Five minutes or so later, the waitress dropped off the two beers and a small cocktail glass containing a light amber liquid and a lemon twist. My wife and I looked at each other, and were certain something had been lost in translation. When the waitress returned, I smiled and pointed at the glass and said, "Um, I'm sorry, but what is this?"

A puzzled look crossed her face and she said, "It is caribou. Did you not want?" The 12-watt lightbulb goes on in my head that I had misread aperitif as appetizer, which it most assuredly was not, and thus we had not ordered the meat from a large horned animal at all, but rather some sort of identically named cocktail. The waitress started to apologize and say that she'd take it back, but we started laughing and insisted that we wanted to try it.

After returning home, we confirmed that Caribou is indeed an authentically Québécois drink--something like a sherry, and notorious as the drink of choice for winter Carnival revelers. It also confirmed the old saying that experience is what you get when you don't get what you want. Particularly when you're traveling, there's nothing better than that.

When in Buffalo...

In Buffalo for the night, ergo wings were of paramount importance. I headed over to the little pub about a quarter-mile from the motel, sat down at the bar, and ordered a dozen to go. Bartender Barbie--very blond, very plastic, and I surmised very likely to be heading to a night job as an adult entertainer after her shift--raised an eyebrow and said, "A dozen? Hon, you can get 'em in 10, 20 or a bucket." (Can someone clue me in if decimal wings are the Buffalo custom? Canadian influence?) I ordered 10.

In Upstate N.Y., it seemed appropriate to grab a Genesee draft while I waited. Genny is the notoriously cheap suds my dad stocked in the fridge--and drinking it brought back memories of when I was a kid and he'd leave his glass on the steps while he was mowing the lawn, and I'd sneak a gulp or three.

Barbie and I made small talk while I waited for the wings. I learned that she'd grown up in Buffalo, she's of Polish descent and that Buffalo has the highest U.S. Polish population outside of Chicago. (Wikipedia indicates she's forgetting NYC.) Does she speak it? Enough to know that the slang for "grandma" translates as "nasty old hag." When I told her I was moving to Canada for the year, she cracked about how the weak Canadian dollar is killing dancer tips in town...and then immediately tried to backtrack by babbling about how the Canadian minimum wage is higher for waitresses, yadda yadda. But her smirk told me she knew that I knew.

Today was free of any record-holding religious artifacts or furniture, but holy crap a lot of cops--I'm guessing I saw upwards of 50 of 'em in 600-odd miles, particularly in Ohio-Pennsylvania-New York. It's close to the end of the month, gotta empty out those ticket books.

Travels with Baggy

Two days, two time zones and 1,000-plus miles east of Santa Rosa, New Mexico, my dog Baggy and I have pulled in to Terre Haute, Indiana, for the night. In addition to Cuba, Missouri's boast about having the World's Largest Rocking Chair(!), we witnessed two different places laying claim to the title of "World's Largest Cross": From what I read, Groom, Texas's is 190 feet tall, while Effingham, Illinois's is 198. I will leave the dispute between them and God. For the record, I also did not stop at the Jesse James Wax Museum (I hate wax museums), nor did I accept any of the many kind billboard offers for "FRIED PIES" along the way. Mmmm. Pie.

Tomorrow takes us through Indiana, so John Cougar/John Mellencamp/John Cougar Mellencamp will be on the playlist, and maybe Devo for Ohio. Wikipedia doesn't have any western PA bands listed that are also on my iPod, so perhaps Hall & Oates from Philly? I'm open to suggestions.

The title of this blog is an homage to Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck, who took three months to wander the country with his dog and a pickup truck rather than speeding across it.

Willin'

As it turned out, I didn't get out of Christopher Creek till 11 am, so it was a push to achieve Santa Rosa. Nothing much of note on the drive: Arguably, getting passed by the John Force NHRA* caravan about 2 hours in was the highlight, which is admittedly not saying much. My brain willingly steeps in the alpha waves.

A ribbon of highway. Lots of open range. Cows. Horses. (Where do they sleep?) Craggy rock formations that reveal the earth's immense forces and give you perspective on how fleeting, and insignificant, human existence really is. Billboards. The twinge of guilt of not bothering with Route 66 in my haste to get east. I had forgotten how windy New Mexico can be--drove over/through a tumbleweed about 3 feet in diameter and was sure that the engine would start spewing smoke. It did not.

I ran a constant stream of tunes and local radio, interspersed with Rosetta Stone French I. It's always fun to match the playlist to the geography: Lyle Lovett's "Nothing But a Good Ride" cranking as we passed Clines Corners; today, Little Feat's* "Willin'" will be a must as I pass through Tucumcari, and Pete Townsend's "Jools and Jim" through "Oklahoma, Oklahoma, Oklahoma...OK."

*An assist to JRF for correctly identifying John Force as an NHRA guy instead of NASCAR. In my defense, I was doing about 75 and they blew my doors off. Maybe John Force was driving the semi.

**An assist to Bruce Farr for catching my early-morning misattribution of this song to The Band.

Quit making me look bad, smaht guys!